


New acquaintances

by NoMotNeedSleep



Series: GakuRen Week 2021 [5]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Fantasy AU, GakuRen Week 2021, M/M, Not really romantic, maybe if you squint but no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29688213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoMotNeedSleep/pseuds/NoMotNeedSleep
Summary: “Who are you?”Ren squinted at the foreign person.The person had strawberry blond hair and striking violet eyes. They looked at him with an indifferent look, and Ren felt as if they could see right through him.“Who are you?” asked the stranger, ignoring Ren’s previous question.“I just asked you that. Don’t just ignore it.”The person scoffed and looked around. They were in the middle of a forest. The sinking sun shone through the treetops and created soft specks of yellow light on the ground.
Relationships: Asano Gakushuu/Sakakibara Ren
Series: GakuRen Week 2021 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153676
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: GakuRen Works





	New acquaintances

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this took far too long.  
> It's 3am, I'm dying
> 
> Written for GakuRen Week 2021  
> Prompt: Fantasy AU

“Who are you?”

Ren squinted at the foreign person.  
The person had strawberry blond hair and striking violet eyes. They looked at him with an indifferent look, and Ren felt as if they could see right through him.

“Who are you?” asked the stranger, ignoring Ren’s previous question.

“I just asked you that. Don’t just ignore it.”

The person scoffed and looked around. They were in the middle of a forest. The sinking sun shone through the treetops and created soft specks of yellow light on the ground.

“I thought the nearest elf community is too far away to meet anyone,” the person spoke again, scrutinizing Ren with their eyes.

They weren’t wrong. Ren knew the elves living in this forest better than any outsider.  
He himself was traveling, that’s why he was so far away from his own community, deeper into the woods than he ever was before.

“And I thought that there weren’t any mages wandering around so far away from their territories.”

It was a bit of a play, Ren couldn’t be sure that this stranger really was a mage. But he could feel the unusual energy surrounding them, one he already felt in the cities most inhabited by mages. And it seemed that he was right, as the other didn’t deny it or disagree with him.

A tense silence surrounded them, filled with the heavy air of the forest.  
They stared at each other for a while longer until the stranger sighed and talked again.

“Gakushuu.”

“What?” Ren looked at him, perplexed.

“My name, it’s Gakushuu. We’re clearly not enemies, so there’s no need for all this hostility,” the mage, Gakushuu, said before turning around and inspecting the tree he studied prior to Ren’s interruption.

Ren couldn’t say he wasn’t dumbfounded by this sudden change in demeanour. But it was definitely better than staring at each other in silence.

“You’re right. My name’s Ren,” he said, approaching Gakushuu and looking over his shoulder.  
“What are you doing there exactly?”

“Examining the local flora, if it isn’t obvious enough.”

Ren ignored the harsh tone and stayed next to the mage.  
The sun was setting, and it would probably rain during the night, he could feel it in the air. So it would be best to stay at this clearing with a roof made of leaves, before continuing his journey the next day.

“What are you doing?” came an annoyed question from Gakushuu, who looked at him with a scowl. “Don’t you have anything else to do?”

“It’s going to rain tonight, so I’ll stay here. I’d advise you to do the same if you don’t want to wake up soaked.”

The other still glared at him, but said nothing, after all, elves were known for their connection to nature.

“Do as you please.”

* * *

The last rays of sunshine died down and Gakushuu seemed to stop his work for today.  
Ren had long built a place for a small campfire, after he had realized that the mage had no interest in holding a conversation.  
Both sat down on the ground and he gestured to the pile of dry wood.

“Could you light it, please? I could start a fire myself, but I think your magic would be much more efficient.”

Ren never asked Gakushuu if he was a fire mage, but his hair colour indicated it enough, so he just asked. And if he wasn’t proficient with fire, he could just say it and he would start the fire himself.  
But Ren’s intuition seemed to be right as the mage swiftly cast a small flame that soon grew into a nice campfire.  
A silent filled the air while they ate their provisions until Ren broke it again.

“So, why are you in this forest?”

Gakushuu looked at him, his face illuminated by the softly flickering flames. The orange reflection in his eyes complimenting his similar hair colour.

“I already told you, I’m here to study the local flora.”

“Yeah, yeah, but now tell me the real reason. I know these regions well enough to know that you don’t have to travel so far, to study botanics, that grow in areas far more accessible. Not to talk about the greater biodiversity in forests close by.”

Gakushuu huffed and looked sort of amused.

“Let’s just say I’m here on order of my,” he hesitated, before continuing, “ruler. He wanted me to get some hard to obtain minerals for our kingdom.”

“Do you really have the time to examine some common plants? Surely that order is more important?” Ren asked, confused why the mage didn’t continue his journey after running into him.

“Oh, yes, he meant it was kind of urgent. So I decided to take a minor detour and follow my own interests,” the other waved it off.

Ren shot him a questioning look.

“I can’t quite follow. If it’s urgent, why aren’t you focused on your quest?”

“Our ruler is overreacting, trust me. And it’s totally going to piss him off, so that’s a plus. He knows me, and he knows that there’s no one else who can do this job.”

Bewilderment was written all over Ren’s face while he listened to Gakushuu talking. He still couldn’t quite understand why the mage took an order from his king so lightly, but he didn’t want to pry any further, now that Gakushuu finally started talking to him more.

“Anyways, why are you here? As I already said, the nearest elf villages are pretty far away from here,” Gakushuu continued their conversation.

“You know, just traveling around. I heard about some beautiful sceneries and wanted to see them myself for inspiration.”

The two continued their talk for a short while before they settled in a comfortable silence again until the fire burnt down and they decided to go to sleep.

* * *

If Ren is honest, he didn’t expect to find a travelling partner so soon after his departure. But as it turned out, he and Gakushuu were heading in the same direction, so they walked next to each other through the wet forest.  
Even though they talked quite a bit in the evening, Gakushuu seemed to prefer silence during most times of his day, so they haven’t exchanged many words since their walk together.

Their wordless travel continued until they stopped in front of a stream. Normally it wasn’t an obstacle, but the heavy rainfall during the night exhilarated its flow to dangerous speeds.

Ren sighed. There was a narrower strip a few hours to the east, but he didn’t know if they should walk there or find another solution.

“Great, what should we do? There is a point where we could cross it, if we walk a while longer,” he asked his companion.

“What do you mean? I’ll just part the stream for a few seconds and we walk through it.”

Ren looked amazed at Gakushuu. He knew that there were mages that could control more than the element they were proficient in, and he certainly could feel the strong magical power coming from Gakushuu, but it was still rare to meet someone that could really do it. Nonetheless, something more difficult than just a simple spell.

“You can do it? Even though water isn’t your proficiency?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“What do you mean obviously, that’s exceptional. You know how few people can actually control more than just one kind of nature phenomena.”

Gakushuu shot him a questioning look.

“I know, but you already saw me do it, didn’t you?”

Now it was Ren who looked at him questioningly.

“What do you mean?”

“The fire. Yesterday.”

What did he mean with the fire? Sure, he lit it, but…

“Wait, fire isn’t your proficiency?”

“No, why would you think that?”

Ren just looked at him before answering again.

“But your hair colour. Aren’t most mages' appearances correlating to their powers?”

“Sure, that’s often the case, but it’s by no means an actual rule.”

Ren did already hear about that, but he assumed that the unusual hair colour with the violet eyes must have resulted from Gakushuu’s magical powers.

“Wait, so if fire isn’t your proficiency, what is it?”

“It’s ice,” Gakushuu answered, already working on his spell to part the flowing water.  
After a short while he finished and walked through the created gap, turning back to Ren who still stood at the other side.  
Now that Ren thought about it, ice made sense. It certainly suited his personality.

“Are you coming or do you want to stay there?”

Ren looked up and hurried after the mage. He certainly was an interesting person.

**Author's Note:**

> So while I was writing this I realised that the story in my head just got longer and longer.  
> Clearly I haven't written everything down. Who knows maybe some day in the far away future I'll do something with this concept again  
> But no promises, because I'm awful at keeping them
> 
> The real question is:  
> Did I just write two random characters and named them Gakushuu and Ren or are they still in character?


End file.
